Sinkhole is symbolic of Jindal's situation

It seemed odd to many that eight months after a giant sinkhole began swallowing trees and swampland in Assumption Parish that Gov. Bobby Jindal had not been down to survey the situation, given his reputation for responding rapidly to disasters, natural and man-made. Yet he practically had to be shamed into going after WAFB in Baton Rouge aired footage of its reporter's repeated questions to the governor of when he planned to go and Jindal's repeated non-answers about how state agencies were on top of the situation and keeping him apprised.

When he finally went to Bayou Corne, environmental lawyer Erin Brockovich, whom Julia Roberts played in the movie of the same name, already had met with displaced residents to sign them up for the expected lawsuit against the company responsible for the cave-in.

Jindal might have preferred to keep his distance until the state Office of Conservation is cleared on any question of lax oversight or slow response. Moreover, symbolically, the expanding sinkhole could signify the course of the governor's politics these days.

Just the week before, Jindal was the toast of the nation's capital, after his killer stand-up comedy routine at the Washington Gridrion Show. His one-liners rocked the audience that included the President of the United States.

The next week, however, at the meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee, the ground opened up under him when he finished ninth in a presidential straw poll. Conservatives must have noticed his recent abrupt swing toward the political center and his stinging criticism of the GOP's performance in the national elections last year. His recycled Gridiron jokes bombed as well.

"I see Eric Holder is with us tonight," the governor read off the teleprompter. The U.S. attorney general, of course, was not.

Brushing that off, Jindal returned to the State Capitol to present to legislators his dramatic proposal to eliminate personal and corporate income taxes and to replace them with broadened and increased sales taxes. His team was confident that the bold plan, which promised to benefit every income group and create a surge of economic growth, would restore his slipping job approval ratings among state voters and secure his hero status among fiscally conservative Republicans nationwide. Any qualms about how the plan would mostly benefit the rich and shift the tax burden to business were dismissed by the governor's soaring rhetoric of greater prosperity for all.

But then serious questions were raised not about the governor's words but his numbers. The independent, nonpartisan Public Affairs Research Council reported that the administration was low-balling the cost of eliminating the income taxes while very optimistically projecting the increase in sales tax revenue, resulting, by PAR's analysis, in a $500 million to $650 million shortfall in the plan's first year.

More faulty math was uncovered the next day when a group of clergy revealed that the administration had not factored in proposed new taxes on services in its computing of the tax swap's impact on lower-income residents. For the governor's favorite example of the teacher making $45,000, adding in service taxes would make a modest tax benefit of $800 more modest still whenever he or she pays the monthly cable bill, gets a hair cut or takes the cat to the vet.

Adding to the sinking feeling, an editorial in The Times-Picayune urged the governor to scrap his tax swap plan and start all over.

With no major group yet to back his tax proposal, could matters get any worse for the governor? It did, with two words not linked to state government in a while: federal subpoenas. It was revealed last week that the U.S. attorney in Baton Rouge is investigating the administration's award of a $185 million Medicaid claims processing contract to CNSI, a Maryland company which previously employed Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein. He claimed to have taken no part in the contract decision, but documents revealed he influenced a change in the request for proposals that made his old firm eligible to compete.

Greenstein, a highly capable administrator, is the governor's point man on the massive ongoing privatization of the management of public hospitals and the Medicaid program. The administration is standing by him, but it swiftly canceled the contract with CNSI.

Given that Jindal's first initiative as governor was ethics reform, what he doesn't need right now, along with other problems, is a scandal in health care, his area of expertise. Especially if, like the sinkhole, it spreads wider.

- John Maginnis is an independent journalist who writes about Louisiana politics.

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Sinkhole is symbolic of Jindal's situation

It seemed odd to many that eight months after a giant sinkhole began swallowing trees and swampland in Assumption Parish that Gov. Bobby Jindal had not been down to survey the situation, given his

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